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Akira wishes Sojiro a good evening and heads out into the damp night. It’s a bit of a trek home, but he appreciates the exercise, the scenery, the time to think or just be. He stops in at his favorite bakery for a slice of cake or two; every night is a good night to treat oneself, after all.
Two bagfuls of goodies later, he’s back out on the sidewalk, getting his bearings when the rain starts back up. He opens his umbrella and steps out from under the awning. Just a few paces down, he sees what looks like a small pile of white cloth and looks around to see if its owner is nearby before investigating further.
As he approaches the pile, he notices little red markings around… eyes? He watches for a while. It’s not fabric at all, but a small breathing creature about the size of a cat but like no cat he’s ever seen before. The poor thing is soaked and looks too tired to even be afraid of the strange giant in front of it.
Akira pulls his black and gray checkered “just-in-case” scarf out of his bag and drapes it over the little guy before taking his umbrella and angling it against the rain over the creature. He pulls his hood over his head and jogs the rest of the way home.
After a much-needed shower, Akira hurries to dig into that cake. He has the perfect bite lined up, mouth watering in anticipation when he hears a scratching at the window. He glances around. Morgana is already asleep on the futon. A shock of alarm at what could be waiting for him out there has him reaching for anything that might help him defend himself.
He creeps with slow, silent steps toward the window. There’s what sounds like a little bark that stops him in his tracks. More curious than frightened now, he hurries to throw open the curtains. It’s the little cloth cat!
The rain has lessened, but the fur is still dripping wet. He sets the spatula he’d grabbed for defense down and scrambles to gather towels and blankets before opening the window and grabbing up the small creature. Gently, he towel dries away most of the water and, at the risk of Morgana’s wrath, pulls out the hair dryer to finish up.
Fur all soft and poofy, the little white four-legged friend shakes in an attempt to get it all back in place. It’s then that Akira realizes this little guy’s identity. It’s a little fox.
The little fox dips its head as if in a bow before turning back toward the window and bounding out. Akira watches a bit confused and almost a little sad; he didn’t even get to feed it. Just as he’s about to turn away, he sees little ears pop up over the sill, the head tugging at something. He leans out to see the little fox dragging the umbrella he’d left for it, the scarf wrapped around it.
Akira takes the returned items in surprise, the little fox’s bright blue eyes shining a bit mischievously.
“Thank you,” Akira smiles as he pats the fox on the head.
It takes no time at all to settle into a routine with the little guy. In the mornings, Akira makes sure to leave the window open just slightly for the fox to come and go at will. At night, he and the two furry residents sit for a meal and turn in for restful sleep. He finds that the fox’s presence is both a comfort and a great help to house maintenance.
The more pressing chores that start to fall behind are often already completed by the time he returns for the night. There was even one occasion he’d come home to find the place ransacked, the culprit struggling beneath an inexplicably heavy little fox until Akira took its spot and called for help. Once the police left, he found the little fox hiding in the closet, a large but superficial wound on its leg. Akira gratefully tended to it and offered nonstop pets for the remainder of the night. He quickly came to love the increasingly less appropriately named little fox.
Then one day, it didn’t come home. He was concerned for certain but decided to give it some time before he panicked. Who knows what such an intelligent creature spends its days doing. He awoke the next day to find the window still open and the fox still missing. He looked everywhere he could on his way to and from work but came home dismayed.
What else could he do? Missing posters probably wouldn’t yield many credible results as the fox was almost certainly the stuff of legends. There was no phone or tracking device to connect them. And was it even right to expect the creature to never leave? The fox had made no promises, as if it ever spoke in the first place, nor was it right to classify as a pet. As much as he hated to, he had to accept that their time together was over. He only hoped the fox had found someplace better.
Weeks went by, each day filled with the poorly suppressed hope that the fox would be there when he made it home, and each day filled with poorly concealed disappointment. Still, the window remained open.
Today, he’s scheduled to only work half his shift, mandatory vacation time. Akira wishes Sojiro a good afternoon and heads out into what started out as a sunny day. Somewhere within the handful of hours he’d been here, clouds had moved in and opened the flood gates. He sighs heavily as he waits, probably in vain for the rain to relent even the slightest bit.
Just as he’s working up the energy to start his sprint to the convenience store, he hears what sounds like a bark and turns to see a tall, lean man heading his way, a mischievous smile shining in his bright blue eyes, a black and gray checkered scarf in one hand and an umbrella in the other.